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Big 12 2014 Season

Big 12 football is but two weeks away! I know there are a lot of Big 12 fans on this board, so thought we should streamline an all inclusive thread as we did last year, seemed to work well and avoid multiple related threads.

Big moves this year, the college football playoff starts meaning the conference champ will likely be the inaugural ambassador of the conference to play for national title!

Preseaon AP puts OU at 4 and Baylor at 10.

Kansas State was also ranked in the AP poll, Texas was in the Coaches poll but not the AP.

Which brings us to Charlie Strong, new blood on the 40 acres in Austin as Texas seeks to rebuild its recruiting after taking some hits in the final Mack Brown years.

Kliff Kingsbury in Lubbock looks to advance his program with youth and vigor in this, his second season as HC.

OSU looks to likely be rebuilding a little bit this year but still dangerous.

Kansas State's crafty Snydercats are always well coached and fundamentally sound and could be a dark horse to take the conference.

TCU is attempting to reinvent its offense as it gets through the newcomer growing pains of the Big 12, it has its work cut out for it.

Iowa Sate has a solid coach, and a difficult roster to gauge in terms of what their season will look like, the hiring of former Kansas coach Mangino is a bump up for their offense however.

Kansas is in perpetual transition, Charlie Weis is no Dan Snyder, and so long as Snyder is there Kansas will be a tough place for him to recruit.

West Virginia, the conference's Jeykll and Hyde team, a team no one in their right mind wants to play in Morgantown, but that can't seem to win on the road. They could make noise if Holgerson finds the early 2012 magic for his team again.

OU, Sugar Bowl champ, perpetual paper champion, and this year is no different, they are the pundit favorite and Coaches poll numero 3, AP numero 4 in preseason.

My Baylor Bears, can they defend their Big 12 title, and will they do it in style at the new stadium on the banks of the Brazos River? They'll be hard pressed to beat OU in Norman this year, the victor being the preseason favorite to win the conference.

But you never know, that's why you have to play the games.

Excited to get the season under way, they'll be plenty of good football and a photo finish race likely to come in December.

If anyone will be in Waco for the inaugural game at the new stadium please hit me up, i'll be there too.

quick thoughts and top half the league prediction:
OU: not sure QB play is at level Bama made it seem. slightly overrated imho. concerned about adding all these guys with character issues.
BAY: lost a lot but keeping the QB was huge.
Tech: young QB should be heisman contender. defense improved but still middle of the road.
KST: Snyder always does more with less.
OSU: QB problems and lost a ton
TEX: Rebuilding the right way but that takes time.

The purge in Austin continues, this time a former 4 star lineman that originally committed to Baylor before decommitting and coming to play for Mack Brown, where he redshirted and sat a year, now has decided he wants to play for Art Briles after all and will have to sit out a year, losing two years of his eligibility to come back to the Baylor team he originally committed to play with, strange choices, he really must've not liked what he sees in Austin for whatever reason.

strange decision by Hammad. he is a Muslim student and going to the southern baptist U.
he says it was his relationship with Wickline so who knows.
he either loses two years in this move or Strong gave him a full release to go anywhere he wants which would be rather crazy since he knew that anywhere was a conference rival.

quick thoughts and top half the league prediction:
OU: not sure QB play is at level Bama made it seem. slightly overrated imho. concerned about adding all these guys with character issues.
BAY: lost a lot but keeping the QB was huge.
Tech: young QB should be heisman contender. defense improved but still middle of the road.
KST: Snyder always does more with less.
OSU: QB problems and lost a ton
TEX: Rebuilding the right way but that takes time.

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Agreed.

I'm also in favor of the round-robin Big 12 setup, but they also may miss the final 4: early guess is FSU, Bama, Ducks, and UCLA.

Having said that, I think the playoffs should be expanded to at least 6, so that each one of the big 5 has a chance to be represented, then add one other at large team. The only way a non-big 5 team has much of a chance is they take eight teams; I think we'll eventually get there.

Tech, K State, and UT could have a spoiler game or 2 -- should be a great year.

I'm also in favor of the round-robin Big 12 setup, but they also may miss the final 4: early guess is FSU, Bama, Ducks, and UCLA.

Having said that, I think the playoffs should be expanded to at least 6, so that each one of the big 5 has a chance to be represented, then add one other at large team. The only way a non-big 5 team has much of a chance is they take eight teams; I think we'll eventually get there.

Tech, K State, and UT could have a spoiler game or 2 -- should be a great year.

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Gotta get to 8 for sure. 4 is a start tho and much better than what we had.

strange decision by Hammad. he is a Muslim student and going to the southern baptist U.
he says it was his relationship with Wickline so who knows.
he either loses two years in this move or Strong gave him a full release to go anywhere he wants which would be rather crazy since he knew that anywhere was a conference rival.

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Strong apparently gave him full release, he is eligible to play for Baylor during the 2015, 2016, 2017 seasons.

strange decision by Hammad. he is a Muslim student and going to the southern baptist U.
he says it was his relationship with Wickline so who knows.
he either loses two years in this move or Strong gave him a full release to go anywhere he wants which would be rather crazy since he knew that anywhere was a conference rival.

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UPDATE: Apparently Wickline was critical and unaccommodating to Hammad's July observance of Ramadan, and chastised him for interfering with training.

Ironic he leaves a secular, perhaps even neo pagan pluralistic environment at UT for the protestant Notre Dame in order to practice religious tolerance.

UPDATE: Apparently Wickline was critical and unaccommodating to Hammad's July observance of Ramadan, and chastised him for interfering with training.

Ironic he leaves a secular, perhaps even neo pagan pluralistic environment at UT for the protestant Notre Dame in order to practice religious tolerance.

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Neopaganism may be a bit overstated -- unless you're referring to the hedonistic party culture of college kids, which exists at Baylor as well.
I grew up through the hippie movement; even that wasn't pagan.

Neopaganism may be a bit overstated -- unless you're referring to the hedonistic party culture of college kids, which exists at Baylor as well.
I grew up through the hippie movement; even that wasn't pagan.

Neopaganism may be a bit overstated -- unless you're referring to the hedonistic party culture of college kids, which exists at Baylor as well.
I grew up through the hippie movement; even that wasn't pagan.

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When I was in college (tho not at Baylor) women still couldn't wear jeans on the campus of Baylor and dances were not held on campus.
You couldn't touch members of the opposite sex in public such as dancing.
It was very conservative.

Things have obviously changed, though they did convince their best ever female athlete, Griner to keep her obvious sexual preference a secret.
Just seemed to me an odd fit for a Muslim.

I have heard negative things about Wickline fwiw.

I doubt Charlie Strong is into any neopaganism that's for sure.
That dude is about as old school conservative as you'll find as Coach.

I still believe that the college experience should be a melting pot of cultures and ideas, all the better for young adults to find their own identity and learn how to understand and interact with those variations that they'll surely find in life. For a successful example of that, look at Stanford. The progress toward more accepting and less judgemental (if not stereotyped) policy at Baylor is IMHO proper cultural and intellectual evolution.

I'd imagine that there are many die-hard Baptists who would strongly disagree, but it hasn't hurt their football program.

Just got back from the sloppiest 45 point win I've ever witnessed, petty didn't play the second half, don't know if injured, he was shaken up on a touchdown run and played sloppy afterward.

Hurt wideouts were evident as offense seemed out of sync, defense had 11 or 12 sacks though, and held SMU to about 50 yards of total offense.

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I agree about the sloppy win. As crazy as this sounds for a team that scored 45, the offense really looked out of sync most of the night, including the first half when Petty played. Several of their TDs were set up by defense/special teams and they definitely left points on the field by missing 3 FG's and fumbling on the goal line.

I'll chalk it up to first game jitters. The defense played much better than I was expecting. If the offense can get back to what they did last year - which assumes Petty is OK - then I think this is a legit contender to make the playoff.

I agree about the sloppy win. As crazy as this sounds for a team that scored 45, the offense really looked out of sync most of the night, including the first half when Petty played. Several of their TDs were set up by defense/special teams and they definitely left points on the field by missing 3 FG's and fumbling on the goal line.

I'll chalk it up to first game jitters. The defense played much better than I was expecting. If the offense can get back to what they did last year - which assumes Petty is OK - then I think this is a legit contender to make the playoff.

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It was revealed by Coach Briles that Petty apparently hurt his back in the first series, that would explain his less than stellar play before being pulled for safety.